"Natural " Miracles CAN Count

[purnell]

An atheistic dogma is just as scary as any other.

[imported_luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
He was saying that certain expressions of atheism can be considered a religion under certain definitions of the word. This is not controversial.

[/ QUOTE ]

The definition given that covers atheism also covers bowling and mushroom picking so it's not that the definition is controversial it's just that it makes the word contribute nothing to the discussion. If we're going to use 'religion' with that definition it can be left out of the discussion as it adds no distinctiveness to two lines of thought that most people would consider not synonymous.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind

[imported_luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
An atheistic dogma is just as scary as any other.

[/ QUOTE ]

No doubt. Is there a link to a site that lays out an atheist dogma so that when somebody tells me they're an atheist I have a good idea where they're coming from?
When somebody say xtian or muslim etc I can fill pages with what I know about things they subscribe to, but when they say 'atheist' I'm usually stumped after the 1st line.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind

[purnell]

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cacheP0...lient=firefox-a

[img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[imported_luckyme]

On Dogma - It’s hard to discuss a topic if the definitions are not held constant, it’ll suffer from equivocation confusion. Typically, when the term ‘dogma’ is used in reference to theism it refers to those well-established parts that are so undisputed that anyone not accepting them as true can effectively be considered not a follower of that belief system. ( NotReady would say a non-belief in transubstantiation means you are not really a catholic, for example…I don’t know if he’s right)

The only ‘doctrine’ that people would stop calling somebody an atheist for not agreeing with it is ‘We believe there is no god’. Say an atheist wasn’t opposed to school prayer – he’s still an atheist. In favor of keeping ‘in god we trust’ for cultural reasons or under no-harm-no-foul thinking – he’s still an atheist.

I know fisherman that fish for trophies, others that fish for food for the family, others that fish for the challenge and then release, etc. So when I say, “He’s a fisherman” the only knowledge you have is that he fishes. There is no fishermans dogma.

When a group of atheists decide to take specific actions ( support church and state separation, oppose prayer in legislative bodies, etc) the actions don’t form a dogma any more than the fishing does.

If I said I disagreed with all their planned actions and strategies, would that make me not an atheist? If not, then what am I? If yes, then their stated actions can’t form an atheist dogma.

Am I missing some logical implication?

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I’d change my mind